Pr. Justin Deniset (PhD)
Assistant Professor
Department of Cardiac Sciences, Libin Institute
Our lab focuses on how the immune system contributes to normal heart function and how it modulates the healing response in the heart following infection or injury, such as a heart attack. It’s an important area of research, because more people are developing heart failure, due to an increased rate of survival of heart attacks and other heart conditions. It’s estimated that about 600,000 Canadians are living with heart failure, a serious condition that erodes quality of life due to symptoms like shortness of breath, swelling, fatigue and weakness and a rapid or irregular heartbeat. People who survive heart attacks often go into heart failure, partly due to scarring in the heart. Our research is looking at how the immune system dictates how the heart heals or scars and examines the possibilities of altering the immune system to delay heart failure. Our work in this area, is trying to understand exactly how the cells work to heal the heart tissue.
Welcome to our lab and feel free to contact us if you want to learn more, or even better, join our team!